69 Yenko...
 

As many of you may remember, our front bucket seats were toast. This was from a dog living in the car for a while as well as years of racoon infestation. Needless to say a complete and total rebuild was in order. We started by removing the seat covers, foam, burlap and cardboard stripping the seats down to bare frames. These were then aluminum oxide blasted and (against what I normally do) repainted in silver paint as they were fairly rusty and I did not want to look at that. The hinges were than painted a semi gloss black to match how they were originally done. Once painted they were completely rebuilt and assembled.

All of the hardware was restored, replated or replaced depending on condition. The rear seat was in very good condition but we went ahead and followed the same procedure as the fronts due to the fact that there was racoon piss everywhere and we did not want to deal with that.

The seat tracks were restored just as thoroughly as the seats. While the tracks were left natural steel the feet we painted semi gloss black. This was done by soaking in Evap-Rust. One thing I noted between 69 and 70, the 70 cars usually only had the rear feet painted black while this particular 69 they were painted both front and rear. These were duplicated exactly as found. The feet were resprayed semi gloss black, the release levers were repainted to simulate the type of plating that they have on them and the springs were repainted. Once complete they were Boe-Shielded, the tracks lubricated with new grease and the re-installed on the finished seats.

The radio and antenna lead was sent into S&M Electro-Tech in Minnesota for restoration. I have been using them for 40 years with very good success and never had an issue. They were both in fairly good shape so he completely tore them down, cleaned, re-lubed, updated with modern electronics and tested. Now ready to install. While at it I restored the antenna cable clamps and protective cover. Fortunately the cover was there and in good shape as these can be a tough item to find.

Just an update as well, thanks to a readers keen eye and one I had never noticed before, assembly line pedal pad design differs from replacements in that the boarder is missing around the pad. A lead was given and I managed to located some reproduction pads from an online company that had the boarder. Unfortunately they only make the clutch pedal pad and/or non disc brake pad. Until I figure out how to cut the recess into the new pad for the disc brake emblem I cleaned and reused my original that was not in perfect shape and had a little wear but at least it is an original style. The incorrect reproduction pedal pad in bottom middle in the photo.

While I was working on the dash area we also totally disassemble and cleaned the vents for the dash. While most were in very good condition the vent balls had to be replaced. They are nice but not exactly like the originals so I had to do some rework on them (pretty much the case on ALL reproduction parts).

The window regulators were done some time ago. Though extremely dirty they were not in bad shape and only required some major soaking, Boe-Shielding and re-lubricating. All the bolt hardware was replated. All track hardware, rollers, glides, pads, etc were all completely restored, repainted, sealed, etc and made ready for reinstall. Most "restoration" shops I know of simply clean these if you are lucky and reinstall, "because you cannot see them anyway"! BS!

The door latches were also completely cleaned, sealed and relubed.

I left the mirror restoration up to Annie. This thing was pretty rough and required a lot of cleaning and polishing. I was hoping to save the mirror glass but that is not happening so am now on the lookout for a donor mirror to get a good piece of glass from if anyone has any leads. I would certainly purchase an NOS mirror as well and just put my original in my parts bin.

The Chevelle returns to our shop on Sunday and then the fun begins of reassembling everything back on the car. Hopefully this goes fairly quickly and trouble free. I will update as we progress.

Did you guys recover the bucket seats yourselves?

Normally we do but in the case of these seats since they required a complete overhaul I did not.

A lot of the 69 dashes crack around the edges where the screws go. That's what happened to mine i have some nice ones that i have found over the years because i know they are getting harder to find

Mine was cracked but easily repairable unlike so many used ones.

Do you need a gas cap? Is it a deep or shallow design?

I do not need one as I just bought one off the site but thanks for asking. My original was not to bad to begin with but elected to replace it anyway with an NOS one.

Rick, I had my original vent balls re-chromed and black resprayed.
if those repros affect your sleep to much.:smile:

I think she is called the glass lady in pa she polishes the housing and puts new glass in them her father had the business and passed away she took it over ill see if i can find her card

Possibly the "Mirror Lady"? I have had mixed reviews about her work but as far as I know, she is the only one doing them. I might reach out to her and see if she can simply supply the mirror glass and I can do the reassembly.

No lost sleep at all in this case. The repos are actually not too bad other than they seemed to be metric so it required a little thicker felt ring to hold them tight and I had to chrome one piece of the vent that was not chromed. Once completed I was very happy with them.

Your floors look better than most paint work ever seen..

Rick the number on the card for the mirror is717 938 2731 and there's another number 717 796 9347

Ok thanks. I will give her a shout.

Well she is finally back at home after a complete and perfect makeover from Jamie Cooper and crew at Super Car Restorations. He does all of our customer cars paint and body and this car was one of his best. He completed it in record time due to magazine commitments and pull every string he could to get it done. Great people to work with.

We met Jamie and his wife Shelly near the Air Force Museum in Dayton Ohio to make the swap and then headed back to the shop last night.

Annie will be here at the shop shortly and the assembly process will begin. Stay tuned.

This project has brought out some of the best people in the hobby regarding parts and knowledge and we are a bit overwhelmed. A HUGE shoutout to John Hoer or his sYc sign on "JOHN" for his donation to our restoration yesterday. John contacted me and offered us his set of 4 NOS trim rings to us at no charge in return for as he put it, "how we have helped the hobby". He went on further to add, "I found a situation that I could contribute to the hobby and hopefully it will encourage others to do the same." Many people already have and not just free or reduced priced parts but also in the vast knowledge that some had with the 69 Chevelle and/or Yenko Chevelles. We could not have done it without their help.

Thanks also to the many others who have parted with some of their cherished parts they had been keeping for their own project but instead offered them to us for the car. Unreal.

Glad she is back home safe and sound :)

Dan

This is exactly what happened with my restoration as well, sYc people helped me in every way possible.

Ryan W31

We met Jamie and his wife Shelly near the Air Force Museum in Dayton Ohio to make the swap and then headed back to the shop last night.


Gheez
If we had known that I would have had Sam stop by and take you to lunch.:youguysrock:

We spent another 8 hours walking the museum. This was our third trip through it and still have not seen it all. Unreal.

The SYC folks are the best in the hobby...You and Annie included. You know what they say about karma.... :biggthumpup::laugh:


Great stuff Rick and Annie...and a shout out to John and the SYC folks who have helped along the way :beers:

trim rings..
 

Rick...are those 15" trim rings..?? I see the GM boxes, just curious what the part number is on those?? Glad to hear it is going so well.

Tom

It’s probably a 6696

Yes, 9796696

Annie and I got started on the assembly last night. Fairly straightforward since I was about 95% done with all the parts restoration. Annie worked in the interior while I worked on the tail end of the car. She installed all the headliner trim, dome light harness and heater box. I still have to add the firewall upper insulation. Thanks to Mark P for the templates needed to cut the insulation.

Annie went on to finish installing the intermediate harness and antenna. Using black tape just like the factory did she replicated the installation of the antenna wire to the firewall.

Just some small details I took care of while she was working on her stuff. Note the spring steel retainer used by the factory to hold the brake/clutch assembly to the dash carrier during installation. I commonly see these and this one was restored and replaced.

Firewall insulation pad was put in place before mounting the heater box and pedal assembly. This is an expensive pad but more closely resembles the factory version rather than using the flat piece of crap that most people sell.

This small red oxide clip helps hold the base of the windshield chrome. These are missing most of the time but ours were still in place so they were restored and replaced.

The monitors come with slotted screws but ours was held on with oval headed phillips screws so that is what went back on. Right or wrong that is what was on there. The harness hook and original and very hard to find bolt was restored and replaced mounted next to the monitor.

I replaced the yellow "215" on the cowl top exactly as I found it during the clean up. I am not sure what this number relates to but have found numbers like this on the 70 cowls as well (though on the other side) and those number also had nothing to do with any numbers on the build sheet or build sequence. Most likely an inspector number.

The detail was put into the trunk as well. The paint overspray as well as the spatter overspray was replicated as near exact as possible. As an very observant sYc member pointed out to me, the area that was taped off behind the side marker lights should be the charcoal grey not the red oxide primer making it even more clear that Chevrolet painted the trunk area a charcoal grey before adding the spatter. This will be corrected in the coming days.

After installing the tail trim I sprayed sealer over the pins just as was done originally.

Those are the later ones. Rick's car will need the ones with the four outer clips.

Good luck with that. These will have to do in the meantime as the 4 clip ones are a toughy. The difference is in the clips and valve stem opening shape.

Very nice attention to detail Rick. You and Annie are really doing a nice job.

Phil

Wow, I just think its amazing how you replicate everything the factory did.
Thats impressive. :worship:

Last night was the fuel tank and other minor details such as the cowl and grounds. Once again I talked Annie into staying late to help out. Just like the license plate light wire grommet, the factory used tape to cover the hole from below. I am not sure why other than maybe to retain the trunk spatter but seriously in those days who would care. Regardless, it was there and I replaced it with the same type of tape and then pushed the grommet through it.

I reworked the ground wire as the terminal is not correct on the replacement pigtails so I replaced it with a correct end. The original bolts were restored and used in the same locations. Same goes for all the gas tank mounting hardware. It is all the original pieces.


The fuel line clamps were an olive drab color based on what I could see on the inside of the clamp where it was protected by the hose. I could barely make out the stampings on the fuel hose so I replaced it with what I have seen on Baltimore cars and that is SWAN GAS.